


The Horror

by sonoflight



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, no five sorry guys :(, someone ban me from discord, villain!Ben
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 10:14:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18496831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonoflight/pseuds/sonoflight
Summary: villain!Ben AU, in which Ben has faked his death and awaits a final showdown with the Umbrella Academy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So once more, I've been prompted by a discord chat to write a fic. This one is much darker than my usual style, but I think it turned out pretty alright. So, uh, I guess enjoy? If you can? Love u all!

Ben waits for his siblings, bracing himself in the dimly lit chamber. They’ll be here soon, he knows. He’d left all the right clues, taken all the right steps. He’s played the game, and now they know he faked his death and has been plotting revenge against them all for their own little contributions to his hellish childhood.

The ghostly silence is shattered by the whir of the lift flickering to life and beginning its slow, creaking descent. It makes Ben smile. They’re coming for him.

He thinks maybe a grand mansion or high-tech headquarters might have been more dramatic and more aesthetically pleasing for his debut as a superhero turned supervillain, but tragically, some concessions had to be made in order to maximize his own secrecy. It wouldn’t have done to have been discovered before he was ready. Everything would have been ruined. So the old mine sitting abandoned miles away from civilization it was.

And honestly? It’s begun to feel like home. More than the Umbrella Academy ever did anyway. Where at first the smallness had felt suffocating and the damp cold had made his bones ache, he is overcome with a sense of peace in this place. The solitude is his friend, the inhospitality a mentor. What a pity that very soon, the walls will be covered in the guts of the people he used to think of as his family. He’s going to need to clean really well or move somewhere else.

The one regret he has about all of this is that he’ll have to kill Klaus, who will undoubtedly be here with the rest of the family, even if he doesn’t believe Ben to be alive—he believes Ben to be a ghost.

There were only a few instances in which Ben had gotten sloppy and allowed himself to be spotted wandering about, but every time, without fail, he’d run right into Klaus. It’s like they couldn’t possibly avoid each other, even after Ben’s “death,” which has an ironic poetry to it. Ben fakes his death and his brother who can see dead people just happens to be the one to spot him before it’s the proper time.

Which, in retrospect, has been very helpful to Ben. As none of the others have ever seen him, Klaus’ conviction that he had indeed talked to Ben only further convinced the world that he really was dead, even if his demise was so gruesome that it left nothing, not even a body to prove that the bloody mess at the scene was him. Just a smear across the wall.

There is one downside to having encountered Klaus so much, though, and that is the unfortunate attachment that Ben has unwittingly developed. In happened in part because he and Klaus had once been relatively close and had remained in decent standing with each other even as they drifted due to time, training, and Klaus’ addiction. So it’s not as if there wasn’t a precedent. But Ben hadn’t meant to get to the point of wishing he didn’t have to kill Klaus—hadn’t meant to develop such a rotten little soft spot for the man.

And damn it all, of course Klaus is the one to step out of the dark lift and into the light. He’s alone too, staring at Ben in raw fear as his wide eyes flick between Ben’s face and the tentacles peeking out from his gut in preparation to strike.

“Oh my god,” he whispers. “They were right. You _are_ alive. Aren’t you?”

The time for lies is over, so Ben nods. “Yes, Number Four, I’m alive.”

Klaus flinches. “Don’t call me that.”

“And why not?” Ben challenges with his fists clenched at his side, nails biting into his hand. “Isn’t that what we are? Numbers in a sick old man’s experiment? Aren’t you Number Four? Aren’t I Number Six?”

“No!” Klaus shakes his head hard enough to send the sweat flying off his curls. “No, we’re not numbers, _Ben_. We’re people.”

“We’re monsters,” Ben corrects him. “And if I call you Number Four, it’s easier.”

“Easier?” Klaus asks, timid. And then his eyes widen as understanding dawns on him. “You can’t mean—Ben, you wouldn’t.”

“No, I would,” Ben says. “And I will.” It’s now or never—no second guessing himself. With just a twitch of motion, he sends the tentacles out and grabs Klaus. He lifts him off his feet in the world’s deadliest embrace, squeezing until he can feel the sweet resistance of bones starting to bow.

Klaus is kicking for all he’s worth and straining to break free. As he struggles, the veins in his neck and face bulge, thick and dark with the blood that Ben is about to spill. His eyes are bulging, his mouth opening and closing like a pathetic fish out of water.

“Wait!” he wheezes. “Ben, hold on, please. You can—” He gasps weakly. “You can kill me if you want to. God knows I deserve it for letting Dad hurt you the way he did. But you have to—you have to listen to me. You’re in danger.”

Ben doesn’t let him go completely but he does lighten his grip just enough for Klaus to draw in a shallow, jagged breath. “What do you mean?” he demands. “Are they all up there, waiting for your signal? I this a setup?”

Klaus hangs his head. “Yes. But I’m not gonna signal them. It doesn’t matter though. No matter what, they’re coming to kill you.” He looks up with tears in his eyes. “I’m the bait.”

The declaration hits Ben like a freight train, and he drops Klaus to the ground, where he lies curled up and hacking, hugging himself as he gasps for air.

Ben can’t believe them—that they would use Klaus as bait. It makes so little sense to sacrifice one of their team. Do they know that Ben’s always like Klaus best? Or did they just want to buy time and decided that Klaus was the most expendable?

Either way, it makes Ben’s mind reel and his heart weep to stare down at the crumpled shape of the only brother to ever show him any care at all, and to know that no one in this scenario thought he deserved to live. The irony is that, despite everything, Klaus is the best of them. Yes, he’s jaded and arguably the most fucked up, but he’s innocent of heart and incapable of evil. Wrapped in the filthy rags of circumstance though he may be, he is pure.

Klaus’ eyes fill with terror at the sound of the lift starting up again. He’s trembling and looking up at Ben, silently begging him to run while he can, but Ben refuses to budge. He’s chosen his stance, and he won’t be intimidated by his family any longer.

He and Klaus hang suspended in that moment, eyes locked, and when the lift stops and the doors open and the knife comes hurtling at the speed of sound, time slows to a crawl. Ben tenses and prepares to deflect the blade. A scream cuts through the air.

“NO!”

And Ben can’t stop the next moment from happening. Steel gleams bright like a promise that Ben is ready to face, but then it’s gone, out of sight. Replaced by the silhouette that is Klaus, who has mustered the strength to rise and throw himself in front of Ben. There’s the sickening sound of metal embedding itself in flesh with enough force to send Klaus spinning, and he falls, taking the knife with him.

When Ben looks up from where Klaus lies in a motionless heap, he finds himself opposite the horrified face of Diego, flanked by Luther on one side and Allison and Vanya on the other, all of them frozen in shock. Blood roars in his ears and he sees red.

“What have you done!?” he rages. “What have you done!?”

This is not how this was supposed to go. It was supposed to be quick and painless for Klaus. As for the others, it should have been an epic battle—the Umbrella Academy versus The Horror—the end of which would see Ben triumphant and his childhood avenged.

Ben doesn’t think, he just lashes out in blind fury. His tentacles make contact with four bodies, and he raises them into the air as if making a morbid toast to Klaus’ short, beautiful life. Their blood will flow like wine for him, as Ben fully intends to slowly crush them into pulp.

One. By. One.

He’ll take Vanya first because she deserves a quick death with as little pain as Ben is willing to allow. She’s as much of a victim as Ben, the only difference being that she was never strong enough to break free. Allison will die next because at least she’d tried to be kind to Ben, even if she never understood his pain. However, her refusal to protect Ben from Reginald when she so easily could have has earned her a slower death than Vanya. After that will be Luther, who, as Reginald’s little pet, was always the worst sibling, never raising a hand in defense of anyone but himself and his father. He will die in agony equal to his crime.

And Diego will go last, for being the hand to deliver Klaus’ fate. First, he’ll have to watch the other three die and their bodies be destroyed by the horrors before he is allowed the promise of his own death. Then, when Ben does finally take mercy on him, the process will be slow and torturous, and Ben will revel in his cries for help, his pleas for his life.

Klaus lets out an anguished moan and clutches at the wound in his chest. “Ben, no,” he implores weakly. “Don’t hurt them. It’s not their fault.” Blood dribbles from his lips, pouring out onto the ground with each thinly spoken word, and Ben’s vision swims with hot tears. Klaus reaches toward him. “Please, Ben. Just… just come hold me.”

With a regretful sob, Ben lets the others go, and they all crash to the ground with the satisfying sounds of bone on rock. It’s not as wonderful as Ben would like it to be, though, as he draws in the horrors and runs to Klaus’ side, gently places a hand over his fading heartbeat.

“I’m so sorry,” he wails. “Stay with me, please, oh god, oh god.”

“Shhh,” Klaus’ lips twitch into a smile. “It’s… it’s okay. Don’t worry about me, just promise you won’t kill our family—for my sake?”

Ben shakes his head and wipes his eyes, smearing Klaus’ blood on his own face. His warpaint. “I can’t promise you that. They have to pay.”

“For what?” Klaus’ eyes, green as grass, search Ben’s for answers. “For what Dad did? They didn’t know any better, Ben, they didn’t know.”

“No, they knew and they could’ve stopped him,” Ben sobs. “They deserve to die for their complacency.”

Klaus’ eyes slide closed, and he coughs pitifully. “I could’ve stopped him too. I knew, and I should’ve been better, should’ve—should’ve helped you. Do I deserve to die?”

“No no no,” Ben doubles over and buries his face in Klaus’ chest, sobs against him with tears soaking into his shirt. “No, you don’t. You don’t—you can’t die.”

“I’m sorry, Benny,” Klaus says in that peaceful and defeated way that dying people always do. His hand lays over Ben’s back in a final gesture of comfort. “I’m sorry.” Then with one bloody exhale, he falls silent, and Ben can’t feel his heartbeat anymore.

Ben screams with a grief more consuming than anything he’s ever felt in his life. It strikes through every nerve in his body, seeps from his pores, makes the horrors in his gut writhe with the want to tear his—their—own body apart. He grabs the hilt of the knife and rips it out of Klaus’ chest, flinging it away. Then there’s nothing left to do but clutch Klaus’ body tight as he can and let his howls fill the cavern.

It’s all falling apart around him. His grand plan to destroy the Umbrella Academy, the vengeance he’s been dreaming of for thirteen years, everything. It should have been glorious, but with Klaus lying dead in a pool of his own blood and the remaining four alive and gathered around in reverent silence, Ben is defeated, mourning for the only martyr of the day.

Allison kneels down on the other side of Klaus’ body and places a light hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Ben?” she says. “Ben, he’s gone. Let go.”

Ben raises his face and sees that Allison too is crying, silent tears sliding down her cheeks and dropping into her lap. He looks around at the others too. There’s Luther with his eyes glistening and holding Vanya protectively. And there’s Vanya, clutching Luther’s shirt as she cries into his chest. And there’s Diego, gloved hands covering his mouth and staring wide-eyed at what he’s done, who he’s killed.

“You.” Ben’s voice is barely his own. Dark and cold and blistering with hatred. “You did this to him. You’ve killed him!”

“I—I d-didn’t m-m-mean to,” Diego stutters out, chest heaving. His eyes brim with tears. “I w-would never.”

“But you did.”

“I’m sorry.” The words are barely out of Diego’s mouth before he crumbles, falls to his knees next to Allison and reaches out for Klaus’ serene face. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

As Diego cradles Klaus’ face in his hands, Ben, despite it all, finds himself believing the apologies. Diego loved Klaus as much as any of them, and he hadn’t been aiming for him—he’d been aiming for Ben because to him, it had looked like Ben was standing over Klaus with the intent to kill him. The rage rushes out of Ben’s body all at once, leaving him shelled. This is as much his fault as Diego’s. Maybe more.

“I’m sorry too,” he whispers, presses his forehead to Klaus’. And he is. He really is sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like a happy ending, I've included a sort of epilogue in which Klaus comes back to life. I mean, who doesn't love immortal!Klaus, amiright? Comments and kudos are always loved and cherished, and you can catch me on tumblr [@lastoftherealblues](http://lastoftherealblues.tumblr.com/)!


	2. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Popular vote said Klaus lives, so... Enjoy!

The five of them stay there for a long time, frozen like a painting. Ben kneels over Klaus’ body, holding onto what’s left of his brother; Diego pets Klaus hair in an inadequate but inexorable apology; Allison holds Klaus’ cold hand in her own, tries to rumor his broken body back to life; and Vanya and Luther remain in each other’s embrace, neither able to bring themselves to look at Klaus’ remains.

Then something happens. At first it’s an almost imperceptible twitch of muscle, just the body settling. But then there’s a weak heartbeat too, a fluttering pulse, and Ben’s eyes widen.

No way.

With a great, shuddering gasp, Klaus sits bolt upright, sending Ben, Diego, and Allison sprawling backward. He looks around wildly, hand flying to the wound in his chest and clawing the fabric apart to reveal a dark but fully healed scar.

Luther’s jaw drops. “Oh my god.”

Ben flings himself at Klaus and hugs him with all his might. “Klaus, you’re okay,” he sobs. “You’re alive.”

For a moment, Klaus does nothing, clearly just as shocked to find himself here and breathing as the rest of them are to have witnessed him come back to life.

Ben pulls back. “What happened?”

“I…” Klaus’ lips are just barely parted as he mouths the words to himself. “I can’t die.”

“You’re immortal?” Allison asks.

Klaus shakes his head. “No, not quite. But I don’t think I can be killed.” Suddenly, he looks at Ben. “Are you okay?”

What an odd question. Ben doesn’t know how to answer, doesn’t think he deserves to. He’d turned on his family and as a result, Klaus had lost his life. Nevermind that he’d been miraculously resurrected by an apparent expansion of his power set. Ben blames himself.

“How can you ask me that?” Ben mumbles. “This is my fault.”

“No, Ben.” Klaus takes his hand. “It’s all of our faults. But we forgive you. Right?” He looks around at the sad circle of people gathered around him. “We all forgive each other.”

And none of them can say no to that when a revived man’s first request is as sacred as a dying man’s final request. Klaus opens his arms, and in the first unified movement they’ve ever executed, they all descend on him in a family hug full of tears and apologies and laughter, and Ben knows. His family did come for him. And they’re going to be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! Comments and kudos are loved and cherished, and you can catch me on tumblr [@lastoftherealblues](http://lastoftherealblues.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
